My Indoor Garden - I grow my own leafy greens indoors - Come and learn how!!!

[w8mk]

Hello everyone,

I grow most of the leafy greens that I consume in basement. I use organic heirloom seeds and I grow everything hydroponically. I have a youtube channel that shows how to build a simple system step by step, by just using some hardware that you would find at your local hardware store. I also posted videos of my grow room.

The broccoli in this video was started on Oct 1 2010 and was harvested on December 2 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc6zB..._safety_mode=1

I grow my own lettuce, kale, spinach, collard greens, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, basil, dill, and peppers.

To see what my grow tent looks like you can view the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyqd_..._safety_mode=1

This is a video on how to build your own system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUN_S..._safety_mode=1

I save well over $4000.00 a year on growing my own food and I don't have to worry about fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides since my produce is grown indoors with organic heirloom seeds. I also pick my produce fresh so there is no nutrient decay as you see with farmed goods. Some recent studies show that by the time that produce is harvested and shipped to the stores anywhere from 40 to 80% of the nutrients will have decayed.

I hope you enjoy the youtube videos that I put together and I will try my best to answer any questions that you might have!

[Revvell]

Good info. Thank you!

[Aleesha Sattva]

No need to double post... so I removed your other one.

thanks!
Aleesha
Admin

[coco]

This looks great and a money saver depending on your energy usage an initial set up.
Do you water from the tap? There is a sulphur exchange that is missed out on when plants don't receive rain water. I suppose you could use melted snow in winter? Do you mention in these vids what sort of fertilizer you use? I'll keep watching...
Anyhow, looks interesting!

[DebB]

I *love* YouTube and I really enjoyed your broccoli video and look forward to watching your other videos. I also subscribed ~ Thanks for sharing! *Ü*

[w8mk]

This looks great and a money saver depending on your energy usage an initial set up.
Do you water from the tap? There is a sulphur exchange that is missed out on when plants don't receive rain water. I suppose you could use melted snow in winter? Do you mention in these vids what sort of fertilizer you use? I'll keep watching...
Anyhow, looks interesting!

Here is some information on costs:

*It costs 7 cents a day, $2.20 per month or 26.40 to run one 90watt LED light at 16 hours a day.

*One light will grow 20 heads of greens over 4 to 6 weeks. This includes kale, chard, and leaf lettuce. Bib lettuce or heads of lettuce can take 6-8 weeks.

*If you grew the 4-week cycle, 20 heads of greens would cost you $2.20 in electricity, $3.00 for rock wool, and 24 cents in nutrients. Total cost: 5.44 for 20 heads of leaf lettuce or kale.

*In the store, organic kale would cost about 3.00/head. 20 heads = $60.00. Money saved: 54.56 a month or 654.72 a year. This is just off one system and one light!

For what I grow, I figure I save well over 4000.00 a year.

This is based off what kale is being sold for in Calgary Canada, and for what our current electricity costs.

[coco]

Here is some information on costs:

*It costs 7 cents a day, $2.20 per month or 26.40 to run one 90watt LED light at 16 hours a day.

*One light will grow 20 heads of greens over 4 to 6 weeks. This includes kale, chard, and leaf lettuce. Bib lettuce or heads of lettuce can take 6-8 weeks.

*If you grew the 4-week cycle, 20 heads of greens would cost you $2.20 in electricity, $3.00 for rock wool, and 24 cents in nutrients. Total cost: 5.44 for 20 heads of leaf lettuce or kale.

*In the store, organic kale would cost about 3.00/head. 20 heads = $60.00. Money saved: 54.56 a month or 654.72 a year. This is just off one system and one light!

For what I grow, I figure I save well over 4000.00 a year.

This is based off what kale is being sold for in Calgary Canada, and for what our current electricity costs.

Very groovy!
Now I just need a handy man around the house to build and set up all that stuff for me. You got a brother? ;) J/K

[kaleboy]

Great videos. Just a few questions...

Say you wanted to set up a small system like one tub with 6 pots, is it possible to stagger the growth so you dont have say 6 kale plants maturing at the same time ?

Also does the water pump and the air run 24 hours ? should they be included in costs also.

How often does the nutrient resevoir need to be replaced during say a 4 week growing period ?

Can you get away with a smaller led if running just 1 tub and can you run it for 12 hours instead of 16 ? if in natural indoor light do you need led ?


Thanks

[bananafish]

Amazing. Is there a good book or info source online on how I could get a small setup like this myself?

[w8mk]

Great videos. Just a few questions...

Say you wanted to set up a small system like one tub with 6 pots, is it possible to stagger the growth so you dont have say 6 kale plants maturing at the same time ?

Also does the water pump and the air run 24 hours ? should they be included in costs also.

How often does the nutrient resevoir need to be replaced during say a 4 week growing period ?

Can you get away with a smaller led if running just 1 tub and can you run it for 12 hours instead of 16 ? if in natural indoor light do you need led ?


Thanks

Sorry for the delayed response. I had company visiting and they kept me quite busy the last few days.

Staggering growth is the same system is not a great idea. The problem with Kale for instance, is that it will grow so tall that it will literally cover the smaller plants from receiving any light.

A solution to this could be to run an additional system and start it a week or 2 later than the first system. If you don't want 6 plants at once, you could always build a simple bucket system and just grow one at a time. I find this method to not be very efficient.

Water and air pumps:

Air pumps should be run 24/7 as they will provide the plants with rich oxygen. My air pump runs at 2.5watts. The water pumps can be set on a timer and run for 20 minutes on 1 hour off. Or you can just run them 24/7. The water pump I am using is 185/gph and it is only using 10 watts of electricity. They use so little electricity that I didn't even bother calculating out their costs.

The reservoir should be replaced about every 2 weeks. So, just twice for the 4 week growing period.

LEDs:

I would never buy under a 90watt led light. They just don't work well enough. The grow times are longer and the plants look a bit spindly and do not grow as many leaves, flowers or fruits. 90w could run a system of 20 plants or 2 systems of 12 plants very nicely. I tried a 50w light and I would never use it again.

I grew 2 cherry tomato plants with a 90 watt led light and I ended up getting 455 cherry tomatoes in 90 days and they weighed just over 11.2 lbs.

As for light times, 16 hours of light followed by 8 hours of dark is the optimal time for plant growth. If you cut it down to 12 hours, the plants will still grow, just not as fast. As for plants like cucumbers and cherry tomatoes they really need the 16 hours of light for proper flowering and fruiting.

If in a natural indoor light your plants will still grow, but it really depends on a few things. How long is direct sunlight hitting the plant? If it is less than 12 to 16 hours a day then yes you should use a led light.

[w8mk]

Amazing. Is there a good book or info source online on how I could get a small setup like this myself?

To be honest, I never bought a book and never read one. I simply read stuff online and saw a youtube video on how to build a system. I then decided to try it myself and went out and bought the parts at a local hardware store and built a very simple system. I then started trying out a few different types of builds until I came up with the one with I really liked.... I made a step by step youtube video on how to build then one that I really liked.

I will be putting up another video in the next few weeks on system maintenance. From PH balancing to nutrients and how to put your plants in the system.

I would recommend for you to build your own as you will save a lot of money. The system I built would easily cost 400.00 from hydrogro and yet I built mine for 50.00 or so.

[streetsurfer]

If you still want to grow broccoli, you might try trimming the individual leaves to about half size. Not sure how well it will work with broccoli, but it would be an interesting experiment. Then, if broccoli works like cabbage, when you trim the head, I think there may be a chance small florets will form at the branch to each leaf, if left to continue growing.
If I were to try it, I would probably trim toward the middle of the growth stage, a few leaves at a time, with some days for recovery in between, so that I was done trimming at least a couple weeks before flowering stage starts.

[kdvwest]

I would recommend for you to build your own as you will save a lot of money. The system I built would easily cost 400.00 from hydrogro and yet I built mine for 50.00 or so.

Are those the same UFOs that cost around 180$ or did you purchase a cheaper version from ebay?


You're very clever, the plants look nice. Maybe you can craft a vertical setup for the lettuce to save some space. Have you tried growing wheatgrass or barley?

I heard that rockwell has a higher pH than a plant needs, do you use any nutrients for the seedlings?

[dmb2002man]

Hello,

I am looking to build this setup and just have a question.

Will these net pots be good for this setup. These are 2"

http://www.hydrowarehouse.com/net-po...ck-p-1370.html

thanks

[streetsurfer]

I think a 2" pot is more suited to propogating/starting cuttings. Maybe growing small herbs. I'm more of a soil man. W8mk can surely advise you better.